Kicking it with Molly: An inside look at Kung Fu class

Friday

Mar 22, 2013 at 12:01 AMMar 22, 2013 at 2:48 PM

Molly Phipps

Over the past few months, I’ve talked a lot about Kung Fu, telling you about tournaments, belts, and history. I’ve even written about a classic martial arts movie called “Shaolin Master Killer." One column featured our own Star newsroom and their martial arts stories.

For this week, I decided to give you all an inside look at my Kung Fu class.

Each Monday and Thursday, I make the trip from my house in Cherryville to Denver. (Not the one in Colorado.) After about an hour, I arrive at the strip mall on NC 16. Above one of the storefronts is a big red sign that says simply “Kung Fu,” because that’s all you need to know. To the right is a bagel shop that, interestingly, also sells flagels. (Those are flat bagels, for all you non-bagel experts.)

I grab my duffel bag and keys and walk to the door. Other students arrive and we all bow as we enter. When the class before ours is finished, Sifu says “Your floor” and all of us walk to the hardwood floor to stretch.

Once we finish stretching, we either form into a grid pattern or do “kicks down the line.” On Thursdays, we usually do the grid. Simultaneously, 20 or so students including myself do high heel kicks, sidekicks, roundhouses, reverse punches, or back fists. Then we work on combinations of techniques. Sometimes we do really long combinations, where we throw a sidekick, back fist, block, reverse punch, and two roundhouse kicks. I like these.

On Mondays, we start with kicks down the line. We all line up, then do a series of kicks in a line from one end of the floor to the other. We walk back around after we finish one line, punch the bag full of BBs, and continue on to the next kick.

We also usually have a workout. First, we lie on the floor and start with knuckle push-ups. Then we do spider push-ups, which ideally involve you pushing yourself up with your fingers. (I haven't quite mastered these yet.)

After another round of tricep push-ups, we do reverse crunches and then move to our backs. We shout “Mahjong!” as we bring our hands and toes up to meet in the middle. Finally, we end with back-bend push-ups and stand up for a one-foot stance. If it’s a tough night, we’ll also do a horse stance immediately after. Then we get a break for water.

Following the workout, it's on to either sparring or forms. At the end of class, if there’s time, we’ll have a history lesson from Sifu or our Sihing, teaching brother. We’ll answer questions about our history that can be as easy as “Where does Kung Fu originate?” and as difficult as “How tall was Great Grandmaster Yeh?”

When we finish with history, we “bow out” for the night. We bow first to Sifu or Sihing, then we bow to Great Grandmaster Yeh, speaking the words of our school motto: “No excuses.”

Officially, class is over. A few people stick around to practice a part of a form they just learned or to chat with friends. As we walk out the door, we bow again.